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AntiPod

When the Microsoft Zune digital music player first appeared, it was the latest in a long line of gizmos to which the phrase “iPod killer” was hopefully attached. And let’s be clear about something: This column makes absolutely no suggestion that there is any credible evidence that this is happening. The most recent figures from NPD Group, the retail-data collector, showed Apple’s device holding 70 percent of the MP3-player market, compared with 3 percent for the Zune. (This put Microsoft in third place, behind SanDisk, at 10 percent.)

Rather, what this column wonders is: Who is buying Zunes, and why? After all, market share aside, more than two million of the things have reportedly been bought by somebody since the first version appeared in late 2006. Robert Schaltenbrand suggests that these consumers simply find the Microsoft product superior. That isn’t a surprising analysis, because Schaltenbrand is the Zune’s brand manager. But in fairness, the product offers some distinct features, like a built-in FM radio receiver. And there is Zune Social, meant to let owners share playlists and actual music. This last idea — and the community that it implies — has been heavily promoted: you and your Zune friends can wirelessly swap songs; settle into your seat in a cafe and you can find fellow Zunesters around you and compare tastes with them; and so on.

Photo

Credit
Peter Arkle

But the most salient feature of the Zune seems to be that it’s not an iPod. Jesse Thorn, host of the public-radio show (and popular podcast) “The Sound of Young America,” is a Zune proponent, praising, for instance, its ability to sync wirelessly with a computer. Plus he was able to update his first-generation Zune with the improved software and firmware designed for the newer version — in contrast to Apple’s charging iPod Touch owners for upgrades, he makes a point of saying. Turns out Thorn has always resisted buying an iPod, having been put off initially by the price and later by the ever-growing number of “self-satisfied people carrying a ubiquitous object.” That sounds hostile, but Thorn is actually quite good-humored. On “Jordan Jesse Go,” another (less formal) podcast he co-hosts, he and his friend Jordan Morris regularly joke about the song-swap feature, inventing the term “rocket up your Zunehole” to describe the practice. Thorn also seems to take pleasure in examples of product-design oddities, like the inclusion of brown among the device’s first-generation color choices.

This is not the attitude you associate with fanatical brand devotion. Similarly, Julia Sliwinski, a media strategist in New York, likes the Zune her boyfriend gave her but has never detected the kind of cult-product passion that attached to the Rio Karma MP3 player she used to own. She hasn’t swapped songs with any other Zune owners because, she says, “I don’t know any.” Asked directly, she admits that “I probably wouldn’t buy an iPod,” as she is “a little bit anti-Apple.”

Community and togetherness seem like a reasonable counterpunch to iPod’s supposed attraction as an individuality enabler that allows owners to wallow in their own tasteful personal soundtracks. But in real life, the cafe patron checking for other Zune owners is less likely to find one than to arouse mild curiosity about his eccentric product choice. Meanwhile, owning an iPod seems roughly as individualistic as a gray flannel suit. Add to this those Apple ads pitting a cool Mac against a hapless PC: they may boost sales, but they have also inspired vitriol among those who find Apple loyalists snobby and smug. It probably didn’t help when a guy who emerged online sporting Zune logo tattoos, declaring himself the ultimate fan of the device, was met with schoolyard-bully-level taunts and mockery. (In a potentially discouraging sign, he recently announced he was disappointed with the Zune’s progress and intended to cover at least one of his tattoos.)

Schaltenbrand, the Zune brand manager, maintains that iPod reaction aside, authentic Zune fandom and the social elements of the device are a big part of its (very gradual) growth. Still, it’s hard to deny that the longstanding Microsoft-Apple brand antagonism is weirdly distorted in the music-player market — the iPod seems somehow both elitist and market dominant. This inevitably leaves room for an underdog rival or two. Microsoft may not think of itself that way, but possibly, when it comes to the MP3-player market, it’s learning to think different.

Correction: August 24, 2008

The Consumed column on Aug. 10, about the Zune, a digital-music player made by Microsoft, misstates one of its functions. It includes an FM-radio receiver, not a transmitter.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page MM18 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: AntiPod. Today's Paper|Subscribe